Media Cleansing

Article in Dawn by Muna Khan, 10/13/24

Headline: “Disgraced Media “

A view from Pakistan

“LAST week, I wrote a piece on Western media’s coverage of the war in Gaza for Prism on the Dawn website. I re-read part of Edward Said’s 1981 book Covering Islam on how the Western media distorts the portrayal of Islam and depictions of Muslims as “fanatical, violent, lustful and irrational”. I often return to this book as it remains relevant. It’s a sad indictment on the Western media whose reporting on Muslims and Palestinians has resulted in their dehumanisation over the decades.

“Despite knowing all this, I felt foolish when I read how The New York Times told its staff to restrict using words like ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘genocide’ and avoid ‘occupied territories’ in their reporting on Gaza. This was revealed by The Intercept in April which received a copy of the internal memo the paper sent to its staff. They also told staff not to use the word ‘Palestine’ “except in very rare cases”. It is mind-boggling.”

https://www.dawn.com/news/1864892/disgraced-media

 

Repeating a Lie in the Media Doesn’t Make it True

Article in Daily Kos by Xaxnar, 9/19/24

Headline: “Must-Read from Jamison Foser – How the media fails us by “Privileging the lie”

“When a news report treats the truthfulness of a lie as an open question, it privileges the lie. When a news report devotes more and more prominent space to recounting the lie and the liar’s defense of it than it does making clear that it’s a lie, the article privileges the lie. When a news report focuses on the target of a lie’s struggle to deal with the impact of the lie, the article privileges the lie. And when a news report focuses on the topic of the lie — even if it does a good job of making clear the lie is a lie — it privileges the lie, because it allows the liar to set the topic of conversation, and thus increases the electoral salience of a topic the liar believes is to his benefit.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/19/2270386/-Must-Read-from-Jamison-Foser-How-the-media-fails-us-by-Privileging-the-lie?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

Are Media Strait-Jacketed About Sane-Washing?


Article in Raw Story by Tom Boggioni, 9/14/24

Headline: “Mary Trump bashes media outlets for ‘sane-washing’ Donald’s ‘delusional’ rants”

“During an appearance on MSNBC on Saturday morning, Donald Trump’s psychologist niece fumed at media outlets that have been accused of “sane-washing” her uncle’s rambling speeches and answers to question to make it appear he was delivering a coherent messag

. . . “”The problem is that, it’s not simply that many media outlets think that they need to translate Donald. First of all they are not telling us that is what they are doing but they are just pretending that he said these understandable coherent things.”

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-sane-washing-mary-trump/

Bait and Switch?


The corporate media hysteria about Biden’s age is reminiscent of a school of sharks circling their prey. As each shark takes a bite, media outlets increase their ratings and revenue. With each chunk taken out of the target the old adage of “If it bleeds, it leads” now has the addition of, “. . . and it pays well, too!”.